Apparently, M-Sport has developed a 2.4L engine for the Fiesta S2000. This new engine makes about 325 HP, but it cannot be used in a FiA championship. However, it can be used in national championships like the BTDRA and you can use it in a "modern" MKI or MKII Escort. This new engine will debut at the Malcolm Wilson Rally, so it will be interesting to see how well it will compete with S2000 cars.

Meanwhile Rovert Kubica is doing the WRC2 in a Citroen DS3 RRC and within ERC he will at least start Canarias.

Good news he decided against Ford. Not that I don't like Ford, but that was the only hope we had to see Citroen in the ERC, while Fords in ERC are half guaranteed. With Citroen looking into ERC now, I guess Pieter Tsjoen will do Ypres in a Citroen RRC.

Fiesta S2400 did compete in the Malcolm Wilson Rally, with ironically Malcolm Wilson as the driver and his co driver was John Millington. It was doing ok, but it retired on SS3, due to engine problems. I guess it has some work, or such problems are typical with a high revving i4 atmo engine. Also the Fiesta R5 made a visit as the 0 car with Matthew Wilson as the driver, and Chris Patterson as the co driver. That car worked brilliantly as a 0 car with no problems. I saw some YouTube videos which had some sideways action. Number plate for the S2400 test car was MM59 ORT.

Fiesta R5 has been delayed, but it should only be for a few months. I think Ford could beat Peugeot to the punch as the first R5 homologated. I also saw some footage of the R5 and it sounds a lot like a Fiesta WRC, as it likely uses the same basic engine as the WRC. Probably the Ford 1.6T "EcoBoost" engine. Though the Fiesta WRC uses what is essentially a custom built engine as so many parts were changed and/or modified to meet the needs of the WRC. Also, that engine uses a custom built cylinder head that is derived from a 2.0L WRC design.

Michel Nandan told Autosport that Hyundai is going to test another version of the i20 WRC later this year. Hyundai will be doing a comprehensive testing program to make sure the i20 is a good car. Also, much of the engine work is being done at Namyang R&D in Korea.

I have heard that R1, R2, and R3 can use a different series engine or something like that. This could mean an alternative engine for those series, as manufacturers are switching their atmo designs to turbo engines.

New news from the FiA, is that in 2014, you do not have to homologate a RRC in order to create a WRCar. Hyundai i20 WRC is the first car to benefit from the new regulations, so there probably will not be a i20 RRC.

Interview with Michel Nandan who talks about the i20 WRC. He talks about Hyundai and the state of the car (as of the interview). He also mentions that the i20 will not have a R2 version, as Hyundai is focusing on the WRC. Again, he mentions that the i20 will be the first WRCar that will meet the 2014 regulations, which the only real change is to not being required to homologate a RRC variant. He says that the RRC only provides an afterlife, so I assume that Hyundai will not create a RRC variant of the i20.

rv65 wrote:I have heard that R1, R2, and R3 can use a different series engine or something like that. This could mean an alternative engine for those series, as manufacturers are switching their atmo designs to turbo engines.

Shows as with R-GT typical FIA. The source of the problem is somewhere else.

R-GT why would pPorsche pay a lot of money to re-homologate their N-GT car into R-GT, spend money for the car being 80BHP less and therefore no more competitive?

R123, has the FIA still not realised that turbo engines is the future? Plus engine change in a budget class? Who is to pay an entry level kit car?

Mind you, on the plus side, if you can change engines to another engine of your range, how about a Vauxhall Adam R1 with the engine from the Vauxhall VXR8?

I hear that the FiA were looking into a R1T and/or a R2T. R1 is basically a production, car as only little modifications are allowed to the base car. I did hear a rumor of Ford working with the FiA to homologate the 1.0T EcoBoost 3 cylinder for the Fiesta R1. That would make it the first true R1T. I did post about R1T or R2T a while back, and it would likely be a 1.2 or 1.4T engine.

Then again, the current WRCars, S2000, and R5 are based on extremely simple tech, but still manage to be expensive.

I did hear that Jacob Jensen is having some issues with his 208 R2 and he is missing the engine and Transmission. Peugeot is apparently slow to supply engines for the 208 R2, so teams are waiting for them. On the flip side, Peugeot did sell 74 208 R2's, so it is looking to be a popular car in it's class.

Then again, there was a driver in the Czech championship who traded in his Felicia kit car for a C2 R2, since he said it was getting expensive to get parts for the Felicia. The Felicia does provide a better show, but the C2 is easier and cheaper to run nowadays.

I do not expect the Adam R1 to have anything other than a stock engine, as like I said, previously, R1 is basically a stock car with a few minor mods here and there.

Nandan also talked in a Czech newspaper about the WRC regulations and he confirmed what he said in the rallye magazin interview, about the change in WRC regulations not requiring a S2000/RRC in order to homologate a WRC. Next year there will be no new S2000/RRC homologations, due to the WRC homologation not being an extension of the S2000 ones. The newspaper article confirmed that Hyundai is going to use a X-Trac gearbox, but he also said that Hyundai will use a custom engine, despite having a 1.6T production engine. He said that a production engine is not necessarily better than a custom engine. He also said that Hyundai chose the custom engine for reliability reasons. These are the same reasons why Citroen and VW chose a custom engine. The real Hyundai WRC engine is under development, though the prototypes have a tuned production 1.6T for now.

Looks like there will be a WRC event in China! This will likely happen next year! Some manufacturers are against it, but VW is fine with a Chinese rally as they sell a ton of cars in China. I think 1 out of 3 cars sold in China is a VW.

Not much is changing, on the regulations side. The current WRCar regulations will stay until 2016, but after 2014, manufacturers no longer have to homologate a S2000 1.6T, in order to homologate a WRCar. After 2016, who knows what will happen. Maybe R5 or an enhanced variant of it would be the new WRCar.

There are some pretty wacky news on how organizers want to improve the WRC. Despite a new promoter, some ideas are involving the power stage being some kind of qualifying and whoever wins the powerstage, wins the rally or something like that. FiA has not started discussing this, so we shall wait and see.

2014 WRC calendar will be announced sometime this month. Sardegna and Acropolis are likely to be dropped as those events will need to pay another 200,000 EUR. I do know that Greece is working on a new event with new roads and the olympic stadium.

Thanks for the info, RV65! I personally would not drop a single tear over the loss of Acropolis and Sardegna. What I have seen of Acropolis last weekend, some people may like it, but sorry, for me if you like that you are following the wrong sport! I have often been criticised for loving asphalt rallies. But to be honest, I utterly love Acores (which is gravel), but what Greece was about, get yourself a Land Rover and drive it to Dakar, in WRC we are trying to promote performance cars, maybe based on hot hatches, and nobody is selling a Polo GTI because of Acropolis the way it was last week!

What's about the Cambrain Rally? Any more info? Sounds good!

You may also have noticed I took care of the photo galleries lately, but could not be - sorry, but "arsed" is the word - about Acropolis. Check the galleries. Hopefully some changes to the forum coming too...